Connecting Outside the Network - Deus Ex HR

Summary: Freya and Adam Jensen, a cyber-enhanced ex-SWAT security soldier, search to uncover who attacked their employer and start to unravel a vast international conspiracy that threatens every human on Earth

Chapter 1

Freya
Pritchard woke up to the gradually increasing tone of Beethoven's 9th symphony
transmitting to her auditory center. She grinned as it grew louder and then
decreased in tone as her alertness level reached functional levels. The latest
add-on was a welcome change from the jarring mechanical BREEP BREEP BREEP of
the cheap digital clock at her bedside table. She glanced over at the plastic
white alarm clock, its red boxy digits displaying 06:05. She'd had the clock
since college after receiving it in a silly "Secret Santa" exchange.
She had been tempted to throw it away many times, but a quick glance around her
apartment made it clear that she rarely threw anything away. The Sarif company
housing at Chiron was pretty generous in space and accommodations, yet somehow
she'd managed to cover the floor in wires, old mobos soldered onto thin wood
planks, and numerous computer and augment parts in varying stages of
reconstruction and deconstruction.

Tip-toeing
carefully across her room around the bed to the shower, she paused in front of
the mirror. She looked awful – hair disheveled, bags under her normally intense
blue eyes, a plastic antistatic strap still fastened on her right hand with the
grounding wire swaying along her bare leg. Sighing, she unfastened it and
tossed it back into the bedroom, running her fingers over the reddish
impression left from it being pressed against her fair skin all night. She'd
gotten an urgent call from David Sarif, their CEO at Sarif Industries, just as
she was leaving work the previous evening.

"Pritchard!
The intellicams are flickering all over the place! I think we're getting pinged
again!"

Sighing,
Pritchard responded through her neuro chip's internal comm line, "Hold on
one moment, Mr. Sarif, I need to get back to my office…" After
all, it's MY job as the chief of cyber-security to determine whether we're
getting hacked or just having an electricity fluctuation.

As
she returned to the Tech Lab, all the screens were black with green lines of
codes shooting through. It was a brute force attack. Somehow they'd gotten past
her firewalls and were now chipping at the final security access password.

"Fuck,"
she cursed, dropping her grey Sarif-issued messenger bag in the doorway and
pulling out her tablet.

"What's
going on?" Mr. Sarif's voice echoed in her head. He was always concerned
by even the slightest technical glitch. His attention to detail was admirable,
though sometimes a hindrance to Pritchard. In this case, however, he was
perfectly justified in his alarm. The rate at which the hackers were bombarding
their security system indicated it was coming from a very powerful network.

"It's
an attack, let me follow it. Nucl3arsnake is on the job."

"Whatever,
Pritchard, just don't let them get through!"

"I'm
working on that, Sir – they haven't gotten the password, for now," she
answered, typing furiously, closing off all avenues of access including the
unconventional ones. Meanwhile she started a back-trace to find the source.

"Do
you think I should call in Jensen?" asked Sarif nervously.

Rolling
her eyes, she shouted back, "What the fuck good is an ex-cop going to be
in a purely cyber-attack? I don't need him here just for the sake of standing
around looking pretty."

"Okay,
I got it, any idea who these assholes are?"

The
screens were starting to stutter in their onslaught – the barriers she'd
activated were slowing them down. "No clue, my back-trace is running but
they're well hidden – I've already traced them through a dozen different nodes
around the world. It's looking like a wild goose chase right now. I've managed
to slow them down but…I think I've pinned down the source of the problem. A gap
in the firewall."

"I
hope you're not talking about the one you custom developed that I'm paying you
for to keep our research safe…"

"Don't
worry, I've got a handle on it now," she said, her face flushing red with
anger and embarrassment. "They aren't getting in. I just need to patch the
weak spot now. It'll take a few hours but don't worry, Sir, I won't be leaving
here until I finish."

"How
long do you think it'll take, Pritchard? We're leaving for the Summit tomorrow
to release Megan's research. We can't afford to let anything get through at
this crucial time," he reminded her.

"Mr.
Sarif, I really can't give you a time estimate, but I'll do my best to have it
done before tomorrow morning. Pritchard out."

If
Sarif defines morning as when the sun first comes up, then she kept her word –
but when she plopped onto her bed still in her work clothes at 3:40am, her last
thought was that the shortly arriving day would be long and unpleasant. After
showering she threw on her black and orange jacket, her Sarif ID badge still
attached to one of the lapels, and headed out the door. Soon she was walking
into the lobby at Sarif Industries HQ. At the center of the lobby was the
information desk, with space over it reaching up three stories. On each side,
stretching down in huge banners, were the digitally enhanced faces of David
Sarif, founder and CEO of Sarif Industries, and Hugh Darrow, the genius behind
augmentation technology. The two fathers of Sarif. The floors wrap around the
inside edges of the huge circular building, with Jensen's security office
jutting out slightly from the third floor and Pritchard's own Tech Lab situated
on the second floor. As she walked past the info desk, the young blond
receptionist flagged her down.

"What
is it?" asked Pritchard.

"A
note from Athene, Ms. Pritchard. Sarif's worried about security after last
night."

She
took the yellow post-it from the receptionist and scanned the scrawled writing
– Mr. Sarif wanted her to run a check on their science team's Global
Positioning Locator chips. Yet another added security feature aimed at keeping
their scientists safe from harm. Sighing, Pritchard thanked her and dropped her
bag off in the office. She found a hair tie sitting on her desk and pulled her
long brown locks up into a loose ponytail. Crap, I didn't even pick up coffee
this morning. With
that last thought, Pritchard went up a few stories to do some routine system
checks, and then pushed the elevator call button to head up to Sarif's office.

When
the doors opened she saw Megan Reed, their lead researcher, and Adam Jensen
their chief security officer, standing in what appeared to be a tense
conversation. She caught the tail end of what Megan was saying, but couldn't
infer much from it as she stopped speaking the second the doors were half open.

Jensen
politely acknowledged her, "Pritchard."

In
a weak attempt to pleasantly diffuse the tenseness, Pritchard started, "So
are we all ready for the trip?" She even offered a smile. That alone
should have earned her a gold medal considering she'd been up late fixing their
system and had no caffeine in her system after 2 hours of sleep. Megan seemed
to be avoiding everyone's gaze, glancing instead at the plane outside on the
pad. She seemed relieved when the doors opened and practically ran for the
exit, "There's Faridah. I'd better hurry. See you at the helipad,
Adam."

"Sure,"
he growled, his brooding brown eyes revealing little.

After
the doors shut and they continued up towards the penthouse, Pritchard felt a
knot in her stomach, "Did I...interrupt something Jensen?"

He
stonily shot back at her, "You fix that firewall yet?"

Okay, that's it. "You don't 'fix' an
entire firewall. You find the loophole and plug it," she explained, not
wanting to relive the previous night. I guess Sarif already briefed Jensen
on that debacle.

"Then
did you plug it?" he asked sarcastically.

"Yes
I did. Want to know how? Oh wait. I forgot. Ex- cop. I doubt you'd understand,"
she spat back at him. She immediately regretted taking that shot. She knew it
was a pompous cheap shot and that she only went there because after the attack
last night her ego had taken a huge hit. Her impervious firewall had been less
than impervious. It had fallen apart. When she got down to fixing it, the hole
she patched was a fairly large one that she should have accounted for when she
first built it.

Jensen's
angular brows furrowed together and the corner of his mouth tightened almost
imperceptibly.

"Ex-SWAT. And you'd be
surprised. Sarif ask to see you too?"

She
was a little shocked he didn't jump at her more after what she'd said. Usually
they were constantly pushing each other's buttons, but he was readily leaving
that topic alone. He must have forgiven her for interrupting his discussion
with Reed.

"Athene.
She wants me to show her how to track our scientists' implanted locator
devices. In case your security plans in Washington don't measure up."

The
two of them approached Athene's desk. The demure, matronly woman looked up from
her screen and smiled at them. Athene was one of those wonderful people who
felt like the company grandmother. She could always tell when people were upset
and knew every employee by name.

"How
wonderful to see you both. Go right in, Adam. He's waiting. Now, Freya, did you
bring me the specs on the trackers?"

"Of
course," she said, handing her a tablet with the blue text already
illuminated. "This is the newest in encrypted GPL trackers, Athene. It
transmits data to our dedicated satellites every 10 feet or five seconds."

Athene
graciously took the tablet from her and began scanning through, asking
questions here or there. The caffeine withdrawal was starting to hit Pritchard
already and she could feel a pounding headache coming on. Suddenly, the
elevator locked down, as did the door to Sarif's office, and red alarm lights
flooded the foyer.

"Athene,
the whole system's been locked down, I need to use your computer," she
said, pushing her way between Athene and the screen. Another
attack so soon? But I fixe-…plugged that hole!Pritchard quickly logged into
her account and pulled up the intellicam system. Every video feed was static.
If it were really just an environmental problem, the security cameras would
still be working.

"Pritchard,
Sarif wants to know if you can disable the alarm sounds," Athene said
gently, knowing Pritchard was already working to get the rest of the system
functional.

"In
a moment…" she said, when Jensen's deep voice flicked on in her head.

"Pritchard,
where's Megan? She report in yet?"

She
pulled up the GPL trackers on the screen and answered, "Her GPL implant
shows her moving through the micro-chem labs...I think she's running!"
Pritchard saw the other GPL signals clustered in one corner of the lab, a
couple were moving erratically, one wasn't moving at all.

"Damn,
must've been a serious equipment failure. Can you get eyes on her?" asked
Jensen, a frantic tone emerging in his normally composed voice.

"I'm
trying, but the intellicams aren't responding. There's interference coming from
somewhere. Find out what's happening, Jensen. Hurry! I don't think this is just
an environmental problem. The cameras…they look like they were physically
disabled. Be ready for anything down there."

She heard a faint trickle
of static in response, "Jensen? Jensen, are you there? Fuck."

Tinkerbelle Leonhardt:
I'm such a sucker for this story, yes there are small spelling mistakes normal human errors, nothing major. you fall in love with the characters and wish to be apart of their lives from the start. You feel their happiness, their sadness and I found myself smiling through most of it, I love that i...

☆☆Julz711☆☆:
Quiet enjoyed the book, although I'm not gonna lie I wanted to know a little further about the ending. .. like did he end up running the company? Did they stay together? What did mom actually do?

Sana Salman:
Simple and too short but gripping. The awakening and prom pushed me into my childhood and now I'm gonna watch Disney's cute animation once again! The thing I like about author, is the writing style. There's not much exaggeration and the story is simply to point. A nice little read if you're fed u...

Sarah Kennedy:
Couldn't put it down once started reading! Loved it so much ❤ def worth reading and so are her other books as this is the 3rd book of hers I've read and can't wait to read the rest! Very talented indeed

Jada Bland:
Strong story line. Loved the dynamic characters. Amazing!!! I'm really excited for the next part in this story. I need to know what happens to Haley, Logan and the crew. I was captivated by the first chapter and stayed like that until the very last sentence.

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